Record-breaking number of people employed in the north west

A record-breaking 3.50 million people are currently employed in the north west, new figures from the Office for National Statistics show.

The latest figures show the number of people employed in the region are up 81,000 on the year and up 321,000 since 2010.

The north west unemployment level has more than halved since 2010, to 3.7% or 133,000 people – down 12,000 on the year – whilst the number of workless households has fallen by 234,000 people since October-December 2010.

Wages also continue to outpace inflation for the 15th month in a row.

Northern Powerhouse Minister, Jake Berry MP, said: "The Northern Powerhouse is not just a plan for the future; it's a story of success as these figures show.

“There are more than 107,000 more small businesses across the north west since 2010 and we're supporting them to grow and provide jobs for local people."

Locally, Jobcentres are supporting a number of ‘Sector Based Work Academies’ recruitment exercises, are working closely with Rochdale Council, and working on ‘employment links’ with vacancies for the new Riverside shopping development.

Rochdale Jobcentre has just completed a successful recruitment exercise for a national pub chain, which will be working with the Jobcentre in the future as they expand, and recruitment activities are starting to progress in Middleton.

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*Employment rate: The number of people in employment in the UK is measured by the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and consists of people aged 16 and over who did one hour or more of paid work per week (as an employee or self-employed), those who had a job that they were temporarily away from, those on government-supported training and employment programmes, and those doing unpaid family work.

Employment is a different, but similar, concept to jobs. Employment is a measure of people, and a person with more than one job would therefore be counted once in the employment estimates.